Wednesday, July 12, 2017

There
are specific rules for identifying broadcast stations. Officially,
station identification must consist of the station's call letters
immediately followed by the community or communities specified in its
license as the station's location. This must be done once per hour as
close to the top of the hour as possible.

So
count me as confused when listening to KRDC (1110 AM) lately. The
once-proud KRLA is now Radio Disney Country with one of the strangest
sets of IDs I have ever heard. Yes, sets. As in three as I heard on
Monday.

The
first was “KRDC AM and FM.” The second was “KRDC Pasadena.” The third
was “KRDC 99.1 FM and 1110 AM.” Only the second is truly legal, but it
appears that the multiple IDs are designed to mislead listeners into
thinking that there is an FM station involved. Except there isn’t, at
least in the traditional sense.

The
FM station simulcasting KRDC’s AM signal is a translator, or very
low-powered FM transmitter designed specifically to bring a station into
an area not well covered by the main signal. In this case it is
officially called K256CX and broadcasts -- or did broadcast -- from
Irwindale on 99.1 FM after station owner Disney/ABC moved it from
Beaumont. Rumor is that it is off the air due to interference complaints
from KGGI/Riverside, which also broadcasts at 99.1 FM.

But considering that the translator in no way makes for an AM-FM simulcast combo in the traditional sense, what are they doing?

My
hunch is syndication. If Disney wanted to syndicate the format to
stations owned by others, it would carry more status if it was available
on a Los Angeles FM station. Since it isn’t, they are faking it, so to
speak, to make it seem more popular than it is. Again this is just a
hunch, but I cannot think of any other reason for the multiple
misleading IDs, and the press-releases offered touting the format being
available on FM in Los Angeles. Which it isn’t, outside of a small area
of Irwindale.

What about Pop Disney?

The
old kid top-40 format heard on 1110 AM when it was called KDIS is still
around. You just need a digital HD Radio tuned to KRTH (101.1 FM) HD2.
Whether that remains as Entercom takes control of CBS Radio -- current
owner of KRTH -- remains to be seen.

Power Struggle

The
transformer explosion that wreaked havoc with electricity throughout
much of the Los Angeles area last Sunday knocked the Mount Wilson FM
Broadcasters stations -- KSUR (1260 AM, 105.1 HD2), Go Country (KKGO,
105.1 FM), K-Mozart (105.1 HD2) and Unforgettable (105.1 HD3) off the
air. Well, partially off the air ... the transmitters were up, they just
had nothing to broadcast with the studios dark. Said owner Saul Levine
“our backup generator failed ... looks like we need a new one!”

Interestingly,
the signal for KKJZ (88.1 FM) -- which uses the same studio complex as
KKGO and KSUR -- was not down. Levine explained that the signal was able
to be routed to the Long Beach transmitter using battery packs.

Also
interestingly, the coverage of the outage was mixed at best. KNX (1070
AM) reported on the transformer problem and the outages throughout the
city, but never put the two together nor explained why a problem in
Northridge would cause an outage in Westwood or Pacific Palisades. Most
likely that is due to it happening on a Sunday ... cutbacks at CBS have
left the all news station with a skeleton crew on weekends.